[QUOTE=davar55;396567]If there's no "money" concept involved in the social system's exchange mechanism,
it is barter. Capitalism began with the invention of money. It was the invention of
money that brought humanity out of the hunter gatherer stage. Those who participated
in peaceful exchanges via money became the capitalists of the future. Those who
stuck with plundering others became the anti-freedom anti-peace anti-money anti-capitalists.

But I digress ... :smile:[/QUOTE]You do indeed digress. People came out of the hunter-gatherer stage millennia before the invention of money according to all the best archaelogical evidence. Settled crop-growing agrarian communities date back around ten thousand years. For instance

[quote] Early Neolithic villages show evidence of the ability to process grain, and the Near East is the ancient home of the ancestors of wheat, barley and peas. There is evidence of the cultivation of figs in the Jordan Valley as long as 11,300 years ago, and cereal (grain) production in Syria approximately 9,000 years ago. During the same period, farmers in China began to farm rice and millet, using man-made floods and fires as part of their cultivation regimen. Fiber crops were domesticated as early as food crops, with China domesticating hemp, cotton being developed independently in Africa and South America, and the Near East domesticating flax. The use of soil amendments, including manure, fish, compost and ashes, appears to have begun early, and developed independently in several areas of the world, including Mesopotamia, the Nile Valley and Eastern Asia.

Squash was grown in Mexico nearly 10,000 years ago, while maize-like plants, derived from the wild teosinte, began to be seen at around 9,000 years ago. The derivation of teosinte into modern corn was slow, however, and it took until 5,500[10] to 6,000 years ago to turn into what we know today as maize.[/quote]

See [url]http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agriculture#Prehistoric_origins[/url] for the full story.

There is evidence for the use of money as distinct from barter appears to date to back to 3000BCE or so and actually [b]predates[/b] barter. Perhaps you might find reading [i]Debt: The First 5,000 Years[/i] by David Graeber (ISBN 978-1-933633-86-2) informative. Here's another quote from Wikipedia :

[quote]Debt: The First 5000 Years is a book by anthropologist David Graeber published in 2011. It is a wide-ranging book, exploring debt's relationship with money, cash, barter, community, marriage, friendship, vassalage, slavery, morality, honor, law, philosophy, commerce, religion, greed, charity, violence, war and government; in short, much of the fabric of human life in society. It draws on the history and anthropology of a number of civilizations, large and small, from the first known records of debt from Sumer in 3000 BC until the present. It explores how debt has changed and been changed by the people and societies which have used it.

A major argument of the book is that when the imprecise, informal, community-building indebtedness of "human economies" is replaced by mathematically precise, firmly enforced debts, widespread impoverishment and violence are common results which only a few societies have managed to escape.

A second major argument of the book is that, contrary to standard accounts of the history of money, debt is likely the oldest means of trade, with cash and barter transactions being later developments. Debt, the book argues, has typically retained its primacy, with cash and barter usually limited to situations of low trust involving strangers or those not considered credit-worthy.
...

Graeber insists that gift economies preceded barter and money, contrary to the popular claims of economists.

...

The author claims that debt and credit historically appeared before money, which itself appeared before barter. This is the opposite of the narrative given in standard economics texts dating back to Adam Smith. To support this, he cites numerous historical, ethnographic and archaeological studies. He also claims that the standard economics texts cite no evidence for suggesting that money came before barter, credit and debt, and he has seen no credible reports suggesting such.

[/quote]

[URL="http://www.salon.com/2015/03/02/my_libertarian_vacation_nightmare_how_ayn_rand_ron_paul_their_groupies_were_all_debunked/"]My libertarian vacation nightmare: How Ayn Rand, Ron Paul & their groupies were all debunked[/URL]
[QUOTE]The closer you get to totally untamed, uncontrolled privatization, the nearer you approach “Lord of the Flies.”[/QUOTE][QUOTE]Honduras has problems but people should go visit anyway and soon. The dangers are fleeting, and there are coffee plantations to tour, ruins to see, cigars to smoke and fish to catch. The people need your tourism dollars. As a bonus, it’s important for Americans to see the outcome when the bad ideas of teenage boys and a bad Russian writer are put into practice. Everyone believes in freedom, but it’s an idea both fetishized and unrecognizable when spouted by libertarians. There can be no such thing as freedom, safety or progress of any kind, when an entire society is run for the benefit of a handful of rich assholes and global conglomerates. If you think I’m overstating it, just go to Honduras and see it for yourself.[/QUOTE]

[QUOTE=only_human;396815][URL="http://www.salon.com/2015/03/02/my_libertarian_vacation_nightmare_how_ayn_rand_ron_paul_their_groupies_were_all_debunked/"]My libertarian vacation nightmare: How Ayn Rand, Ron Paul & their groupies were all debunked[/URL][/QUOTE]

There are things I would love to see in Honduras. I am not persuaded as to the safety. Even more, I know intellectually about the horrible problems of the nation, but seeing it in person is more that I can handle.

[QUOTE=only_human;396815]My libertarian vacation nightmare: How Ayn Rand, Ron Paul & their groupies were all debunked[/QUOTE]

Capitalism and Libertarianism are not really related. Capitalism means economic freedom,
libertarianism means absence of government restraint of all but criminal action. The difference
hinges on what we mean by freedom, both politically and economically.

There is no issue that in a capitalist economy, there would still be government involvement in
some aspects of our lives, such as perhaps making us pay for our military protection and for
the court system that protects our rights. It is our rights and freedoms that government is
instituted to protect. Not all libertarians would agree to even this much government.

Pro-capitalists do agree on economic freedom, but abhor fraud and other abuses as much as
non-pro-capitalists. That's why they accept the need for courts and police and rule of law.
The belief that those who deliberately harm others through economic methods would escape
lawful punishment in a capitalist society is not an indictment of capitalism - economic freedom
is not license to defraud or produce a harmful product without consequences. The market and
the law would take care of the unscrupulous.

[QUOTE=davar55;397093]Pro-capitalists do agree on economic freedom, but abhor fraud and other abuses as much as non-pro-capitalists. That's why they accept the need for courts and police and rule of law. The belief that those who deliberately harm others through economic methods would escape lawful punishment in a capitalist society is not an indictment of capitalism - economic freedom is not license to defraud or produce a harmful product without consequences. The market and the law [B]would[/B] take care of the unscrupulous.[/QUOTE]
Why "would?" Under these terms as you've just described them, this is the system we have now. Those gambling bankers would have shot themselves in the foot but everyone else jumped in the path to catch the bullet that might have hurt the scoudrels. What prosecutions? The market and the law have left me gravely disappointed. Since profit motives support shifting costs to hapless bag holders, what should it be a indictment of? And the law and the market circle the wagons to protect themselves as their big celebration continues. The vacuum is what's left in the bag the rest of us end up holding.

[QUOTE=davar55;397093]Capitalism means economic freedom[/QUOTE]Once more you ignore the standard definitions of common terms in favour of your own inventions. How is your good friend Humpty Dumpty by the way?

You asked for a definition of capitalism a while back. I provided the standard one. You've yet to respond to that post, either to accept the defintion or to explain how, in your opinion, it is erroneous.

Capitalism and economic freedom may be positively correlated. You appear to be the only one here who believes that the correlation coefficient is +1.

:popcorn:

[QUOTE=xilman;397109]Once more you ignore the standard definitions of common terms in favour of your own inventions. How is your good friend Humpty Dumpty by the way?
You asked for a definition of capitalism a while back. I provided the standard one. You've yet to respond to that post, either to accept the defintion or to explain how, in your opinion, it is erroneous.
Capitalism and economic freedom may be positively correlated. You appear to be the only one here who believes that the correlation coefficient is +1.[/QUOTE]

There's nothing wrong with repeating yourself, if you add a little more as well.

Your definition of capitalism didn't mention the issue of economic freedom, only private ownership.
My insistence that only under capitalism does economic freedom occur does not conflict with the
other properties of a capitalist society that you considered as defining capitalism. Economic freedom
consists of certain capabilities not restricted by the government, which capabilities are usurped in
any other kind of economic system, such as socialism, communism, dictatorship, etc.

I don't equate Capitalism and economic freedom, I merely note that the latter cannot occur except
under the former. In that sense, the correlation of complete capitalism and complete economic
freedom is indeed +1. Other economic systems may allow lesser degrees of freedom, but their
correlations to economic freedom get closer to zero point zero. There still are differences among
our current capitalist countries, which are the freest countries, the US being the nearest to complete
Capitalism, but the problems we may still have are a reflection of the further degrees we all still
must go. Freedom is the value we all agree on.

[QUOTE=davar55;397158]Your definition of capitalism didn't mention the issue of economic freedom, only private ownership.[/QUOTE]Exactly. I suggest that you study some economics texts where you will find that capitalism is defined pretty much as I gave it. Only you seem to equate economic freedom with capitalism.

There have been and are socialist capitalist economies, such as the traditional Scandavian model. There have been capitalist economies largely free of non-private ownership without economic freedom except for a small minority. Consider the robber baron era of the US where markets were essentially open only to the members of a small cartel as in the oil, steel and railroad industrial sectors.

Let's put your assertion that the US is presently the closest to complete economic freedom and the strongly implied desire that your government should get out of the way of your making the best advantage of economic freedom. I would like to purchase from you some fine Cuban cigars, a couple of niggers and 1kg of 99+% purity lysergic acid diethylamide. Further, I would like to act as a shipping agent, for which I will pay a mutually agreed fee of course, for a customer in Iran to whom I wish to sell 100kg of 90%-enriched U-235.

Are you free to engage in these economic transactions? If not, do you consider it a restriction on your economic freedom?

[QUOTE=davar55;397158]There's nothing wrong with repeating yourself, if you add a little more as well.

..... Freedom is the value [B]we all agree on.[/B][/QUOTE]

There you go again. You are presuming agreement by all. But what [U]is[/U]* it that we are all agreeing to, this "freedom?" Are you sure it means the same to all users?

Oh, now I remember. It means whatever you find convenient to your arguments.

*disambiguation required

I see you all equate freedom with economic freedom. That's the error.